This volume, developed by the Observatory together with OECD, provides an overall conceptual framework for understanding and applying strategies aimed at improving quality of care. Crucially, it summarizes available evidence on different quality strategies and provides recommendations for their implementation. This book is intended to help policy-makers to understand concepts of quality and to support them to evaluate single strategies and combinations of strategies.

As the first of the nation's 78 million baby boomers begin reaching age 65 in 2011, they will face a health care workforce that is too small and woefully unprepared to meet their specific health needs. Retooling for an Aging America calls for bold initiatives starting immediately to train all health care providers in the basics of geriatric care and to prepare family members and other informal caregivers, who currently receive little or no training in how to tend to their aging loved ones. The book also recommends that Medicare, Medicaid, and other health plans pay higher rates to boost recruitment and retention of geriatric specialists and care aides. Educators and health professional groups can use Retooling for an Aging America to institute or increase formal education and training in geriatrics. Consumer groups can use the book to advocate for improving the care for older adults. Health care professional and occupational groups can use it to improve the quality of health care jobs.

Technological innovation continues to be present in all areas of our lives, offering seemingly endless possibilities. As technology is increasingly implemented in healthcare applications, it is necessary to understand whether users respond to a predefined organizational strategy of model of care or whether they will become wholly dependent on the healthcare technology. This understanding is especially crucial when dealing with the possibility of generating inequities, especially with individuals that are elderly. Exploring the Role of ICTs in Healthy Aging is a collection of innovative research that proposes the detailed study of a strategic framework for the development of technological innovation in healthcare and for its adoption by health organizations. While highlighting topics including emotional health, quality of life, and telemedicine, this book is ideally designed for physicians, nurses, hospital staff, medical professionals, home care providers, hospital administrators, academicians, students, and researchers. Moreover, the book will provide insights and support executives concerned with the management of expertise, knowledge, information, and organizational development in different types of healthcare units at various levels.

Choosing appropriate and quality care for you or a loved one can be an emotional and daunting responsibility. With the horrifying stories of senior neglect and abuse in newspaper headlines over the years, how do you determine between the good, the bad, and the ugly? In A Pathway to Senior Care in San Diego, author Nancy Coulter Beland draws upon more than thirty years of experience in senior care to reveal the ins and outs of the industry. With anecdotes from her days in the dugout, you'll learn how to: - Have those difficult conversations with your loved one about power of attorney, driving, lifestyle preferences, and more - Determine which care option is right for you and your senior - Interview home care agencies - Look for signs of quality senior communities - Work with Medicare, Medi-Cal, SSI, and VA benefits - Make moving day easier on everyone - Take care of yourself in the process Beland understands there isn't a one-size-fits-all approach to senior care. She carefully lays out each option for different care levels and provides a wealth of resource information to be sure your senior obtains the best consideration possible.

Quality of life (QoL) is a broad concept that has many definitions and meanings depending on the context under consideration. It can be perceived as the overall enjoyment of life, and a multidimensional concept which emphasizes the self-perceptions of an individual’s current state of mind, which is affected in a complex way by the person’s physical health, psychological state, personal beliefs, social relationships, and their relationship to salient features of their environment. On the other hand, demographic data suggests an increased need for workers worldwide and a rapid aging trend in the active workforce as well as in general. This trend of workforce deficit and population aging will be even more prominent in the future. Therefore, in order to have and sustain a healthy, motivated, and productive workforce, but also healthy, independent, and active elderly adults, one must improve their QoL, and vice versa. Improving QoL will improve general public health, and in turn create communities who can contribute in diverse and positive ways to both promote and sustain health for future generations.

Family caregiving affects millions of Americans every day, in all walks of life. At least 17.7 million individuals in the United States are caregivers of an older adult with a health or functional limitation. The nation's family caregivers provide the lion's share of long-term care for our older adult population. They are also central to older adults' access to and receipt of health care and community-based social services. Yet the need to recognize and support caregivers is among the least appreciated challenges facing the aging U.S. population. Families Caring for an Aging America examines the prevalence and nature of family caregiving of older adults and the available evidence on the effectiveness of programs, supports, and other interventions designed to support family caregivers. This report also assesses and recommends policies to address the needs of family caregivers and to minimize the barriers that they encounter in trying to meet the needs of older adults.

In East Asia’s largest cities, hundreds of thousands of women remain single into middle age and beyond, giving rise to a demographic transformation with profound implications for their societies. Labeled in the media as “loser dogs” and “parasites” in Japan and “leftover women” in mainland China and Hong Kong, single women in East Asia are criticized for being choosy, selfish, and overly independent. Based on ethnographic research and interviews with more than a hundred single women in Shanghai, Hong Kong, and Tokyo, Making Our Own Destiny is the first study to comprehensively compare the views and experiences of single women living in these three great cities—cities that stand at the forefront of the region’s movement toward later marriage and rising singlehood. This well-researched book explores how single women attempt to take advantage of unprecedented opportunities for success in education and work while navigating marriage and family expectations. Unlike their counterparts in Europe and North America, many do not have romantic partners and most do not have children. What do these women want? How do they see themselves and their place in society? What are their values, goals, and dreams? As they work to balance opportunities with expectations, single women in urban East Asia find themselves deeply embedded in the caregiving systems of their societies. In Shanghai, author Lynne Nakano finds single women rushing to marry to enter intergenerational relationships of care. In Hong Kong, they consider the risks of marriage as they tend to the needs of natal and extended families. In Tokyo, many single women hope to marry to have children while others find a place for themselves in their families as elder caregivers. Nakano’s intimate portrayals not only expose meticulously planned family strategies gone awry, engagements broken, and careers abandoned, but also highlight the experiences of women embracing the joys of remaining single. Hers is a fascinating study of modern women finding meaning in their lives while offering an insightful glimpse into the future of urban families in an age of low fertility and long transitions into adulthood.